What reaching enlightenment was like for me

[alyra]

Hello ?

 

first i I want to say that throughout all my journey so far I have always been self-actualizing. Even when I was a teen I have memories from then about becoming self aware and developing a growth mindset. 

 

My journey is not done. I am not really that much more conscious today than I was a week ago and I will continue to enlighten moving forward in my life. 

 

 

Okay that being said, this week everything fell into place in a profound place and I wanted to share this with anyone who needs inspiration along their purpose. 

 

 

So the line “once you see it it can’t be unseen” has always been one of the resounding statements ever since I heard it last year on here in this context. How it would normally play out would basically be, once I really understood a new idea it would just be retained. There are times even, when a simple idea or example I heard ten years ago but never could put to use suddenly came into place in its now moment as I applied such a memory. And sometimes I have had experiences more novel and profound that really stick with me,

 

such as that time I became suddenly aware of how mundane my present moment had been, in study hall, and looked around at the stage and the ceiling light and that particular chair and said each time I will never remember this moment, or that moment, or this one either; and then I laughed to myself saying instead: because I just said that I bet I’m never forget this moment at all! And despite only remembering that moment maybe once in four months at best I definitely still remember that memory framed with those observations of the mundane. 

Or that time when after talking some about Siddhartha by Herman Hesse in English class, I was walking home, and felt, experienced, understood love unconditionally for all things - I knew that my love was unbounded and only deterred by fear or distrust - or by losing focus of which identity was loved. I did not quite say it with quite that clarity but I definitely experienced that enlightenment of universal love.

 

there has also been countless times when I met sudden understanding of what was being explained, in a mundane yet “aha!” way, that it’s moment forgotten but it’s experience will never be and what I learned also never has.  

 

 

And there’s more significant, new-understanding experiences, which unfolded over a couple days or in discretely remembered steps at milestone intervals over weeks or months or years, where I slowly pieced together better knowledge or better understanding that were especially memorable in their impact and their inspirations.

 

and there was what happened this week. My current “three-month” growth plan was to learn motivation and consistency. While I have a lot of frameworks and other perspectives already learned from many different times prior in my life, I was prioritizing this focus of growth. And new steps I’d made as well as guidance from a peer here about how to efficiently manage too many competing urgent demands which really piggybacked the prior growth plan of keeping priority in mind whenever I found myself lost or distracted, led my current practice I started this week of simultaneously changing up the tools of my life I’m using while practicing affirmations brought me to this amazing new me.

 

affirmations brought my center to joy and presence and passion. Those weren’t the affirmations I even once spoke, I only thought to say if that way in the now moment as I write, but that describes it well. I am active and present and my mind keeps returning to this dream that’s unfolding quickly and consistently. I’m writing down my plans whenever I want to, then returning to working on my physical health, resting, running errands, all of which are things up to this point I’ve been struggling to achieve consistently. 

Dsspite living with sadness for 28 years it and other negatives and distractions have fizzled away and while I could sit and search and find them and live their pains again, I do not experience them constantly but instead constant bliss. Well not true constant but then I think that just shows what consistency truly means. 

Any problems or worries I encounter I find an intuitive answer to either right away or within a few hourlra l, and keep moving forward unfolding my plan in my mind’s strategizing, and unfolding my life in my pragmatic actions. 

I smile all the time without trying and laugh jovially at different ideas or events or sayings. I establish change on a quick basis and make real growth on an hourly basis toward my goals. 

And more, I lost track of my saying. But everything fell into place this week when practicing affirmations led to immediate passion and motivation and consistency in real time. I’ve been constantly moving towards my goals at all moments of the day, even if that requires resulting, often finding some way to move forward even if laying in my bed. 

Manx I just know that this won’t fade and be lost. I’m not going to truly relapse from this. 

 

I mean, I am certain that I will have moments of depression or anxiety in the future, of apathy or of other such moods, in fact I’m playing with the idea of becoming depressed every night as I fall asleep. To introduce a natural high and low on a consistent basis such as to curb the crashes that I used to always experience every week, and to copy and capitalize on the pattern that most days I’ve found depression towards the end of the day, wallowing in it until I remembered that I could just sleep and recover to my center in my waking. 

 

 

 

 

And there are the times where I can remember the inspiration I needed to make growth, whether it was a book or a moment of experience or a friend or enemy speaking with me or what, that I knew I learned this because of the muse that other offered to me. 

 

 

And there here have been the mistakes I’ve made, the blunders, the embarrassment and scoldings, the hurts and the confusions, the realizing I was lost or dumb or had said something inaccurate and regretted it, or misunderstood or ..... so on and so. 

Moments of sucking, relapsing,  noticing my pitifulnsss, wanting to die, my anger, my rants, my bigotry I hated myself for having, the enemies I made and the times I hurt others and felt ashamed for it. 

 

 

 

All of the above has all been enlightenment. 

 

Mane it compounds for sure. What I’m doing right now I did not expect to have for years. I was surprised by how profound this was, nothing so far in my life has been this profound, but yet I was not without enlightenment. I would be surprised if I found such a enlightenment shift like this in the future as well. It came with a surprise, this level of enlightenment, and always will, but nonetheless it is not really so powerful as it seems, not so much significant, that is not how exponential growth works. Exponential growth works because of its consistency, not because of the random spikes. Those spikes are major milestones, but they were made possible because of the quiet everyday mundane enlightenment everyone makes without noticing. 

 

 

You are enlightenment and could not not fail to be so even if you tried. You will never stop being enlightened, never stop needing enlightenment, and never stop lacking it. Even in your death your enlightenment will be immortal in what your splash in the river of existence has had on its overal movement. 

 

I think ive said it well and while I now there was much more to say, many more growths, I have my priorities.  Peace and strength, my friends! ?

 

 

ps. Ah, remember to love diversity, for which path works for one person does not work for another. My self actualization and life purpose are most certainly revolves around the dual world, and it’s been frustrating trying to converse with all y’all seeking for nondual consciousness as if it can only be obtained with meditative retreats  ironically this only retreat I’d been planning with actual meditation practice is now immaterial because I’ve unlocked potential that leaves that retreat’s aim in the dust. Meditation and similar dedicated practices for sure can be powerful, and occasionally I do them. Unless you want to count my practice of walking interpretation of sitnand do nothing meditation but really it could be said either way - 

 

my practice has  been entirely composed of Active Mindfulness habit and little to no prolonged meditation ? hope that shakes some of you up, and brings a smile of love in others. 

Oh, and I’m transgender. Let that scare you. How can someone “obsessed” with identity find noself????

 

 

 

 

PPS: Ama if you so choose, but it very well may be a week before I revisit the forums. Cya then!

 

 Love!

 

Alyra ? 

 

 

ppps. Sorry for the minimal editing to ensure clarity and value ? posting challenges my body right now in my recovery so I need to minimize it to maximize my dream. 

 pppps and no my LP is not my dream. My dream is just big picture planning. My LP is to be as effective as I can be in every endeavor I undergo. And that is not going to change. It is what drives me and what always has drive me - growth!

 

 

 

okie, NOW I’m out, peace ✌️ 

[PsiloPutty]

"Even in your death your enlightenment will be immortal in what your splash in the river of existence has had on its overal movement."  I love this line!!!

Do you regret your gender operations now?

Most transgendered folks say that much of their lives were spent feeling like they were occupying a body that didn't truly belong to them. If this was true for you, do you think that the constant awareness that you weren't in your own body acted in a catalytic way in your enlightenment? 

[Joseph Maynor]

Thanks for writing this.  It’s nice to get a peek inside someone else’s experience with Enlightenment.  

Yes, Enlightenment concerns the Non-Dual.  But the most advanced stage of Enlightenment is when you can let the Dream be the Dream and sort of go back into the illusion, just not Egoically doing so. It’s an embrace without an embrace, so to speak.  You step back into the illusion without clinging to it.  You lose your fear of the illusion.  When you’re in what I call the “la la land stage of Enlightenment”, you’re still kinda weary of the illusion.  You’re hands-off, right?  You don’t wanna have any part of it because you fear the illusion of Ego.  However, at the advanced stage, you re-join the illusion, sort of.  But you’re a different person in doing so. 

Edited March 30, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[alyra]

Yes, very well said  thanks @Joseph Maynor

I totally relate to what you've said there!

 

it is especially interesting because my path so far has been to let the dream be the guide as I approach nonduality, practicing active mindfulness in majority. So while I do at times “slip out” of it, it’s never for long. I guess my path doesn’t value the urgency of such guidance, heh! But it is a very inspiring experience to have

 

 

 

@PsiloPutty 

ah! That’s a lovely line indeed   

 

no, I have no regrets and it wasn’t until I was certain I wouldn’t have em that I became comfortable moving forward in my journey. 

 

there are many things in my past experience that led to my growth to the stage of self actualization I’ve found, and they were all essential   I did for a time feel very disassociated from my body. and it, with many other things, did help guide me to find new understanding. But I rarely feel that same disassociation now. Ever since my most recent big moment of enlightenment, I’ve not once looked in the mirror without smiling ?

 

 

 

 

So it’s been a few days since I last posted so I wanted to elaborate more on my enlightened experience - something else that has happened is that I constantly am in touch directly with my awareness. What that does mean does vary with time and focus, and well it’s half a lie because I do still occasionally “blink” so to speak  but before, I’d lose the consciousness of my awareness whenever taking action for sure  often doing or saying or thinking mindlessly. But now when I do or say or think I’m aware of it directly. 

 

And  the the other thing is I’m constantly in touch with my intuition. At times I flow out of creative into focus, or rest, or closure, or patience, or other such things. But I keep returning to creative intuition and solving problems in a flash that I couldn’t overcome before. Balancing competing needs like I couldn’t do before..., oh there is so much I could be saying about what happened! But I have literally transcended who I was before into a higher state of being — there is no doubt. 

 

I find it so easy to smile authentically now, people glow when I look at them. Good bye resting bitch face, haha! I laugh and cry more easily I’m just more in touch with all of my being. Etc— ...

 

Ah, there’s just so much that is difference! 

 

so I am awake now like I’ve never been befor, and now I realize that waking up is not leaving the dream, it’s transcensing it until you see what you couldn’t before. You will never leave dreaming behind you. Your dreams will only change to shift into something new! Something that comes with more awareness than before!

 

 

oh, I do get too excited!

 

But as much change as I've accomplished to become enlightened, it does not stop here. There’s more to be done. She accomplishes one milestone and moves onto the next  it’s absolutely inspiring!

 

 

 

 

... ah, it saddens me because my mother watching me change only sees the anxious one I used to be and believes I’ve entered some kind of crazed state. It’s enlightening to realize the care we need to take when communicating with those not at your stage, it can be frightening or dangerous or damaging. Oh! But, that is exactly what a dream is for! To compartmentalizations reality into something that can be better understood. Haha! To anyone looking to produce media, that’s your key! And to anyone who hates the distraction of media, that’s you’re balancing realization  the lower consciousness is nothing but a simplification to enable your understanding. Hate it if it consumes you. Love it when it inspire you!

 

ah, I should stop this post before it gets to be too much